


Cherry Blossoms for the Departed

by Rethira



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, xxxHoLic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't believe Kaworu-kun is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherry Blossoms for the Departed

**Author's Note:**

> For my "fusion" square.
> 
> There are sort of spoilers for xxxHOLiC I guess?
> 
> The title is from _Sakura Nagashi_.

There’s no such thing as coincidence; everything is hitsuzen.

~

Shinji knows he’s dreaming simply because he is happy. There’s a cool breeze blowing amongst the cherry blossoms and Kaworu-kun is sitting beside him, calmly sipping his sake. Kaworu-kun smiles – it’s... not quite his usual smile, but it’s close enough. It’s peaceful here, wherever here is.

“Do you like it here, Shinji-kun?” Kaworu-kun asks, tilting his head just slightly.

Shinji nods and smiles – Kaworu-kun always knows just what will make Shinji feel good. Ever since they met, Kaworu-kun’s been making Shinji feel good.

“Yes,” he replies – and the old him would never have been able to say that, the old him would have danced around the answer, but this is the new him, the one Kaworu-kun has helped him be. “It feels like Kaworu-kun here.”

“Ah, I’m glad,” Kaworu-kun replies. “This place was built for the day that must come, but....” He turns to look Shinji in the eye, and covers Shinji’s hand with one of his own. “If it becomes one of Shinji-kun’s reasons to stay....”

“Kaworu-kun?” Shinji asks. Kaworu-kun smiles, and his eyes are so sad, and Shinji can feel his world crumbling around him already and Kaworu-kun hasn’t even said _anything_ -

“You’ll remember, won’t you, Shinji-kun?” Kaworu-kun asks, and he cups Shinji’s face and presses his lips to Shinji’s forehead, murmuring, “You’ll be fine now, won’t you, Shinji-kun?”

“I’ve- Kaworu-kun’s said that before? In- in a dream?” Shinji asks.

Kaworu-kun smiles, soft and sad, and shakes his head. “And the dream will end soon,” he says, standing and taking a step back from Shinji.

There’s a sudden gust of wind, blowing cherry blossoms everywhere, and in the seconds that Shinji cannot see, Kaworu-kun has moved nearer to the trees and he’s- he’s-

_Feathers_. For a second, Shinji thinks it’s just Kaworu’s kimono, but there are pale feathers mixing with the cherry blossom and Kaworu is-

Smiling as he turns to feathers, and Shinji can’t reach him, he can’t get close enough, and he can hear screaming, he can hear sobbing, and it’s _him_ , he’s the one who’s-

“Kaworu-kun!”

~

Asuka’s the one who finds him – the third Rei had gone out at some point, but Shinji didn’t think she’d gone to get Asuka. Either way, Asuka turns up almost a week after Kaworu disappeared, and she grumbles incessantly about it. She forces Shinji to get dressed – even though all of Shinji’s clothes have disappeared and they only have Kaworu’s old yukatas – and drags him out into the garden.

“Are you just going to lie around all day?” Asuka snaps. “What if a customer comes? Honestly, Shinji-kun, you’re really terrible at this.”

She doesn’t mention Kaworu the entire time she’s there, and when Shinji offers to walk her home she looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. “Idiot, you know you can’t leave the store!” she yells, stomping towards the entrance. “I’ll be back tomorrow, and you better be dressed!”

Rei comes back that night – Shinji’s sitting outside on a picnic blanket he found in the storage room. It’s the same one that was out when Kaworu disappeared, and he’s brought out the sake just in case. Rei comes and sits beside him, and Shinji knows it’s the third Rei before she even speaks.

“Ah, Ayanami-san? D-do you remember Kaworu-kun?” he asks.

Rei carries on looking at the cherry tree, but she nods, and that’s enough. Shinji has to believe that’s enough.

~

They get a customer the next day – she walks in all wide eyed and innocent, and she’s perfectly polite and reserved to Shinji, even though he’s... well, one of the Reis had dressed him in one of Kaworu’s yukata, and it’s slipping off his shoulder, and they keep pouring him sake and Kaworu’s pipe and Shinji can’t say _no_ to them-

“This is the wish shop, isn’t it?” the woman says. Ibuki-san, she’d said her name was Ibuki-san.

Shinji nods slightly – possibly he shouldn’t have had sake at breakfast – and tries not to topple out of Kaworu’s chair. “It is, Ibuki-san,” he agrees. “You have a wish then?” He wants to say he’ll get Kaworu to help her but... he doesn’t know where Kaworu is.

Ibuki-san blushes a little and glances down. “Ah, um, yes. I have- I would like Ritsuko-sempai to notice me.”

For a moment, Shinji is paralyzed. But then- then Rei appears in the doorway, and her eyes are hard and cool and Shinji remembers how Kaworu used to do this and maybe, maybe if Shinji does well then Kaworu will come back? Maybe if Shinji does what Rei wants him to, what Asuka wants him to, maybe Kaworu won’t be gone.

“All wishes come with a price, Ibuki-san,” Shinji whispers, forcing the words out.

She nods, and reaches for her bag. “I can pay you-”

Shinji shakes his head, “It’s not that kind of price, Ibuki-san.” He tries to remember what prices Kaworu charged, what sort of thing he might have asked for- “You have something precious to you,” he says. Kaworu took precious things often. Even for Shinji, he’d taken precious things.

Ibuki-san looks quite surprised; she clutches at her throat and reveals a pendant. “My father...” She shakes her head, and quickly takes it off. “If you’ll grant my wish, it’s fine.”

Shinji nods, and the Reis take her outside – the second she leaves two of his fingers snap. The third Rei steps over and calmly pushes the bones back into place, producing a length of bandage from her bag and setting it around Shinji’s fingers.

“The price was too low,” she comments.

“Kaworu-kun would have done better,” Shinji doesn’t say. He cries quietly until Asuka arrives, and she spends so long berating him for his fingers that Shinji doesn’t have time to cry.

~

He’s high on- it’s like a mix of painkillers and opium and sake, Shinji thinks. Maybe. Asuka brings medicine over every time she visits lately, and she keeps on complaining about how Shinji always has more injuries. If it’s not his fingers it’s his wrist, and if it’s not his wrist it’s his ankle, and once when he had fingers, wrist and ankle all broken, huge welts had opened up down his back that Rei had swabbed perfunctorily with something that stung. She’d done it twice a day for a week, by which time the welts had healed over – but they all remembered it.

So Shinji is high on a variety of things, and he’s hugely enjoying it – lying on the floor staring at the ceiling, which has configured itself into looking a lot like Kaworu, so Shinji’s having half a conversation with it when Rei comes in. She’s in the same school uniform as Asuka, and for the first time, Shinji decides to ask.

“Ayanami?” he starts.

She turns to look at him. Her eyes are just as blank as always – not quite as blank as the other Reis’, but close. “Yes?”

“Wh-where do you go every day?” he asks.

Rei stares at him for a while, completely silent. Then she turns away and says, “Ikari-kun’s house.” She leaves the room before Shinji can say anything else.

He stays on the floor, staring at the ceiling, until the other Reis come and carry him to his futon.

~

The next time a customer comes, Shinji sends them away without fulfilling their wish. The shop gets angry then; the doors change and shift, the Reis disappear and even though Shinji can hear Asuka pounding on the door, she can’t get in.

He’s glad.

~

One day, Shinji finds Kaworu’s special kimono out. The third Rei doesn’t say anything when she leaves, and none of the other Reis say anything either. They help him dress in Kaworu’s old clothes, and then they take him to the room where Kaworu always took his customers, and hand him Kaworu’s pipe.

No customers come, and Shinji smokes until he can’t smoke anymore, and then he falls asleep.

“Ah, Shinji-kun,” Kaworu murmurs, stroking the hair off of Shinji’s face. “Remember I love you.”

~

There are tales of a shop that grants wishes. If you ask certain people, they will point you to a place that looks like an empty lot, sandwiched between two buildings. If you’re very lucky, you might even be able to see the shop itself.

But its doors have long since closed, and now the only visitors there are two girls, one with short blue hair and cool red eyes, and the other with long red hair. If the girls ever meet, the red haired one will fight with the other, but it never goes anywhere.

Eventually they both stop coming at all.


End file.
